


Disintegrate

by arthur_pendragon



Series: Brittle [3]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Incest, M/M, Modern Era, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-04-05 14:00:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14045799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arthur_pendragon/pseuds/arthur_pendragon
Summary: “I can’t let this happen anymore,” Arthur says. “Merlin, tell me—who am I replacing?”





	Disintegrate

**Author's Note:**

> i am absolutely incorrigible. this is the last one.

This is never going to be enough.

This—minutes and seconds stolen between classes and hours of revision and kisses at night—is never going to be enough. Arthur knows it’s never going to be enough. When Merlin looks at him, Arthur sees it mirrored in his eyes.

“Mum and Dad okay?”

“Yeah,” Merlin says. He’s only twenty-one, but at times like this, Arthur sees the burden of aeons in his eyes. “They want to talk to you. They miss you. Why do you never take their calls?”

Arthur stays silent, not knowing how to say _I don’t know anyone and I don’t want to know anyone now that I have you again_ without choking. It scares him, this uncontrollable urge to never let his brother out of his sight, to keep him bound to Arthur lest he dance into the night and never return, leaving Arthur to suffocate, struggling against the walls closing in on him.

Merlin swallows. “You said it was going to be like this forever, Arthur. You _promised_.”

“I know,” Arthur says, frustrated, clutching his pencil so hard it bends and cracks in the middle. “But I’m not the one you’re looking for.” _I can’t be. There’s something wrong with all of this, with both of us, I think everyone else can see it, but we’re both blind to it and maybe we shouldn’t be._

Merlin is aghast. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m not who you see when you look at me, Merlin, and I thought I was okay with it as long as I had you.”

“Arthur,” Merlin starts, flaring up, but Arthur won’t stop.

“I can’t let this happen anymore,” Arthur says. “Merlin, tell me—who am I replacing?”

Merlin reels as if Arthur just punched him, and covers his face with his hands, but Arthur’s seen him quake with sobs every time he drags Merlin’s legs over his shoulders or lowers himself on Merlin’s cock. He’s—he’s used to it. Used to Merlin breaking down every time Arthur says _idiot_ or _harder_ or _shut up_ or _thank you_. His heart is a black, charred mess for it.

“Who am I replacing?” Arthur repeats in a pretence of impatience while his stomach is in his throat and he is three minutes away from vomiting all over his love.

Merlin takes a deep, shuddering breath. His eyes are curiously empty. Arthur is enchanted.

“I’ve failed you,” he says to Merlin’s hunched figure, “as a brother, a friend, a human being.”

“You keep trying to do the noble thing,” Merlin whispers, but he might as well be shouting for the effect it has on Arthur. “Don’t you understand? I’m happy as I am. I’m here with you.”

“Happy?”

Merlin looks up at him, then. “The happiest man in the world,” he says with conviction, even as his face is twisted in anguish.

Arthur laughs and laughs as his eyes prickle and his vision blurs.

 

***

  
For all his confidence in Arthur, Merlin gives in too easily. Arthur only needs to push him off a few times before Merlin comes home to the two-bedroom flat Arthur bought for them, in which Merlin’s room lies abandoned—with a beautiful girl, fair with long, black hair, shy, all the world’s innocence contained in the bridge of her nose.

“I’m Freya,” she says, and nearly puts her hand forward to shake Arthur’s. Merlin defiantly stands beside her and places a—warm, Arthur imagines—hand on her back. Challenging Arthur.

“Arthur,” Arthur says, hoping he looks happy.

“Merlin told me,” Freya replies. Arthur defocuses and for a second, he almost sees—nothing, he sees Freya, smile slightly strained now.

“I’ll be out of your hair now,” Arthur says with a slight huff, grabbing his flat keys and leaving without a glance back to go to the nearest pub and drink his weight in anything that’ll make him forget the way his little brother looked at Freya and the ugly emotion it brought forth in Arthur.

 

***

  

Arthur lets himself in at three in the morning. The flat is dark. He turns on the lights in the foyer and sees dainty scarlet heels neatly to the side. Something in him withers and dies at the sight.

She’s probably with Merlin right now. In his bed, sleeping or fucking or whispering, with Merlin, who gave in too easily for him to have meant anything he said. It’s good—nothing but good for _both_ of them and especially for Merlin, who deserves much better than what Arthur can give him, but Arthur’s still seized by the urge to pulverise glass with his bare hands as he kicks his shoes off and makes his way to his bedroom.

He tries to be silent, succeeds, and is nearly there, nearly about to cry himself to sleep like a child when the door to the bathroom, right next to Arthur’s bedroom, opens and out steps Merlin, eyes widening as he sees Arthur’s dishevelled clothes—

—and in a flash Arthur’s manhandled him into his room and slammed the door shut and pinned him against it—“Had fun with her?” he murmurs into Merlin’s mouth as Merlin eagerly rucks up Arthur’s shirt. Merlin doesn’t answer.

Arthur cups Merlin’s face and kisses him, sedate and searing. “Kissed her like that?” he asks, and parts Merlin’s mouth with his middle finger. Merlin moans quietly and sucks on Arthur. Arthur can feel him leaving fingernail marks on Arthur’s back, underneath the shirt Arthur will never wear again without getting hard as a rock.

“Did you two fuck?” Arthur asks, curling his finger and brushing it against the roof of Merlin’s mouth.

Still Merlin doesn’t reply, staring hazily at Arthur, mouth a perfect wet circle. He swallows and bucks his hips against Arthur.

“Show me what you did to her,” Arthur whispers. Merlin breaks eye-contact.

He shoves Arthur away.

Arthur stumbles back, dizzy with everything he’s denied himself and the wretchedness now overlaying all of it, a heart attack waiting for Merlin to leave.

Merlin shuts the door behind him.

Arthur collapses onto his bed, pressing his forearm across his eyes and willing himself to stop, just stop, don’t—a sob heaves itself free anyway. This is good, it’s good that Merlin understands why this was futile, and he’s happier now, Arthur supposes, this all worked out, he should be happy for his brother—

“Hey,” Merlin breathes, hot in Arthur’s ear. “What’s wrong?”

Arthur never even heard the door reopen.

“I just went to get—oh, Arthur,” Merlin says, crawling over him and settling into Arthur’s corners. “ _Arthur_.”

He tosses whatever was in his hands aside and pulls Arthur’s arm off his face and kisses him.

“I never even touched her, she’s just sleeping in my bed,” he whispers between every brush of his mouth against Arthur’s. “She’s just… an old, old friend. I adored her, once. I was going to run away with her.”

Arthur chokes back everything he wants to say. He’s never seen Freya in his life. She didn’t live in their neighbourhood. She wasn’t the daughter of any of their parents’ friends. She couldn’t have been in Merlin’s—and thus Arthur’s—life.

“You’re lying,” Arthur says anyway, ragged. “I never knew her. How do you?”

“I’m not,” Merlin says. “You didn’t know her. Not like this, anyway.”

“Why didn’t you run away with her?” Arthur mumbles. Merlin pauses in his luxurious idolatry of Arthur’s lips. “You _adored_ her. She’s here now. Go to her.”

Merlin sighs.

“All my life,” he says, the most familiar weight on Arthur’s body, “ever since I was old enough to love, I’ve loved you.”

“You were never supposed to—” Arthur’s completely fucked Merlin up—

“All my life,” Merlin repeats fiercely. “Longer than you could ever comprehend.”

Arthur crushes Merlin to him.

“What am I missing?” he keens. “What are you hiding from me? _Who am I replacing?_ ”

Merlin slides one hand into Arthur’s pants and retrieves the lubricant he’d tossed away with the other. As Arthur opens readily to Merlin’s gentle fingers, Merlin whispers.

“Promise you’ll believe me if I tell you?”

“Yes,” Arthur moans, eyes shut tight.

An entire day passes in the hot, rough twists of Merlin's hand until—

“You’re replacing no one but yourself,” Merlin says, sweet and loving, and Arthur loses himself completely.

**Author's Note:**

> _the end_
> 
> feedback/hugs/concrit/anything else except mean anons welcomed with open arms!


End file.
